The Word – Lake District Writers
The Lake District has inspired writers, artists, and poets for generations with its beautiful and dramatic environment.
Some of the most famous authors have lived and worked in the Lake District, all influenced by the stunning landscape.
Here are some of the Lake District’s finest.
1. William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth is one of the greatest poets of the English language.
He created much of his important writing in the Grasmere area where he created some of the best-loved poems of the Romantic period.
Wordsworth was born on 7th April 1770 in Cockermouth in the north-west of Cumbria.
His fascinating life included school days in Hawkshead, studying at Cambridge, early travels to France, and his passionate support of the French Revolution, and finally returning to the Lake District where he married and raised his children.
Wordsworth was a quirky character. He was a small man adored all his life by two intelligent women.
In 1843, following the death of Robert Southey, he was offered the Poet Laureateship.
His romantic take on the Lake District has drawn tourists from around the world to visit the places he walked and wrote about.
Wordsworth died on 23rd April 1850, as the cuckoo clock was striking the hours on noon.
He was 80 years old.
2. Beatrix Potter
For many, especially children, Beatrix Potter is the most interesting of many Lake District writers. She was an artist, storyteller, and countrywoman whose stories have clear connections to the Lake District. Helen Beatrix Potter was born in Kensington, London on 28th July 1866 into an upper-middle-class family.
Beatrix Potter was a curious mixture living in the village of Near Sawrey, always Victorian, wearing long tweed skirts and jackets made from her own Herdwick sheep’s wool. She wore an old felt hat in winter and a straw hat in summer.
3. Arthur Ransome
Born in Leeds in1884, Arthur Ransome became one of the most accomplished and popular writers for children ever published. He grew up in Leeds and went to school in the Lake District before transferring to Rugby, where he remained an undistinguished scholar and a duffer at games because of his poor eyesight. His abiding passion was to become a writer and to pursue the outdoor life of fishing, sailing, and camping.
4. Alfred Wainwright
The Blackburn lad became a Lake District legend, which all began in 1930 at Orrest Head overlooking Windermere. When the 23-year-old Alf saw the fells for the first time ‘it was a moment of magic’. For decades, he has explored the fells and started work on his seven-volume Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells which describes the natural features, routes of ascent and descent and the view from the summits.
He eventually detailed 214 fells, now known as the Wainwrights.
